The Red Sox won Game 3, so all of Red Sox Nation went from hopeless to hopeful in the span of a few hours. The Sox faced off against both the Houston Astros and the rain on Monday for Game 4 of the ALDS. The Sox had Rick Porcello on the mound and much like his fellow starting pitchers, he struggled out of the gate. Porcello only got to pitch 3 innings before the Sox went with their ace Chris Sale out of the bullpen. The Sox were able to rally and get the lead and Sale pitched into the 8th inning. Unfortunately Sale ended up giving up the game tying home run in the top of the 8th and then Craig Kimbrel ended up letting Houston take the lead. The Sox couldn’t rally one more time and the loss ended their season.
Porcello gave up a single run in the 1st inning when Altuve ground into a double play, but Springer was able to score from 3rd. Sox 0-1. The Sox tied the game right up in the bottom of the 1st when Xander Bogaerts hit a solo home run. Sox 1-1. Unfortunately Porcello gave that run right back when he gave up an RBI single to Springer in the 2nd inning. Sox 1-2. The Sox looked like they were primed to do some damage in the bottom of the 2nd with the bases loaded and no outs, but they ended up coming up empty. The Sox weren’t helped by the home plate umpire either who called both Jackie Bradley Jr. and Dustin Pedroia out on strike three when both looked off the plate. Pedroia basically lost his mind and Farrell came out and got in between them. Farrell was ejected, however that was clearly taking the ejection for Pedroia so that he could stay in the game. Porcello pitched the 3rd and that would end up being it for him.
Chris Sale started warming up and he’s end up in the game in the 4th inning. The Sox were going for broke and throwing everything they had in this game. Sale pitched two scoreless innings and then the Astros decided to counter with sending their ace to the mound. Justin Verlander came out of the pen and took the mound with one out in the 5th inning. It didn’t work out for the Astros as Verlander gave up a 2 run homer to Andrew Benintendi to give the Sox the lead. Sox 3-2. Sale pitched through the 7th inning and then, much to everyone’s surprise, he went back out for the 8th inning. Sale ended up giving up the game tying home run to Bregman to start the inning. Sale got an out and then gave up another single. Sale left the mound and now Craig Kimbrel was in the game in hopes of keeping it tied. Unfortunately Kimbrel wasn’t able to do that as he gave up an RBI single to Reddick to put the Astros out in front. In a bizarre twist of events, Sale was now in line for the loss and Verlander was in line for the win. Kimbrel went back out in the 9th and things went from bad to worse. Kimbrel gave up an RBI double to Beltran to give the Astros an insurance run. Sox 3-5. That insurance run would loom large as Rafael Devers hit an amazing inside the park home run in the bottom of the 9th. The Sox still needed one run to tie the game and the next three Sox batters would go in order. The season ended with Dustin Pedroia grounding out to second base.
Red Sox 4 Astros 5 BOXSCORE
WP: Verlander (2-0) LP: Sale (0-2) SV: Giles (1)
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